News Article: James Neal: The Poster Child for What's Wrong With NHL Discipline System

[gopens66]

NHL refs are jokes. I have no respect for them because I believe they are the major reason the game is regulated to afterthought status outside of Canada... Call the damn penalties on the books they way they are meant to be called... don't even up, don't waver for home crowds or because you don't like some particular player... If the interference and cheap shots were called on the teams that start them, maybe we don't see all the diving and embellishment and retaliation that we do... players have to sell a hit to get the calls... that's just not right, on both ends....

or change the rules for the 3rd period or overtime or the playoffs.....

 

[td_ice]

Most teams in the league have a player like Neal who does dirty things. A lot of teams have someone worse than Neal. Is Chara a bad captain because of Marchand or Thornton? Or Doan a bad captain because of what happened with Torres? There's no connection there. You can't blame someone else for one individual's actions. I don't even blame Bylsma for Neal. What Neal does is 100% on him. It's crazy to believe that Crosby or DB or even Shero haven't talked to Neal. There's only so much talking can do.

As far as your second paragraph, I think Crosby is overly criticized for his so called issues in high pressure situations. He's better than almost everyone in them. People expect perfection from him all the time, and that's impossible to live up to. Golden Boy Toews had a meltdown in the playoffs last year and no one bats an eye at him. As far as the way the team plays in the playoffs, the structure of the team is not on the players.

I'm just tired of the constant criticism of Sid and Geno. It's getting ridiculous.

Exactly.

We (meaning Pens fans on HF) might be a bit more sensitive to it because of the reaction on HF. Which has a microscope on Pens players, good or bad. Due to the Pens hate/hypocrisy that happens on HF. If it is a Penguin, than the point gets exacerbated, and held up to greater scrutiny. But in others case, such as Chara with a sucker punch to Sid's jaw, the reaction is "hey it's the playoffs", "he deserved it", "whine about that".

People love to rip on Sid I guess because they feel they have to balance out all of the positive things about him, which probably drives Sid haters crazy. So they gotta reach for things to attack him with, made up or not.

 

[StaalForOne]

Geno was nearly suspended during our cup run.

Yup, he's done the same things similar to what he did with Zetteberg multiple times since with others. The blues game being the most recent, and he's had multiple incidents againts Coutier.

neal seems like a d-bag/punk. he is the sort of player that makes the penguins unlikable. but he scores a lot so i dont mind a certain degree of antics. he takes it too far though.

his cheapshots need to stop. they dont add to his game in the way that cooke's did. cooke was a consistent physical presence that did a great job of wearing down the opposition's blueline by forechecking hard or by targeting the opposition's stars.

neal just throws temper tantrums when things dont go his way and cheapshots people. i dont care what other teams get penalized for, neal is frequently an embarrassment.

the unfortunate thing is that he can be a consistent physical presence that plays a relatively clean brand of hockey if only he was motivated. when he's not being a baby, he can forecheck with the best of 'em (ie when he drives chara nuts).

but most of the time he is just a whiny petulant star.

This is my biggest issue with Neal, he has the ability to be a physical force in a clean manor, and I think the entitled player label is properly deserved. When he came into the league at first, he plastered people with clean hits. There's no need for the Glendenning/Marchand/Giroux headshots( although the last 2 were pretty brutal embellishments, the intent and follow through on Neals part were obviously there) I'm fine with him not hitting in the reg season as much because you don't want a goal scorer to hurt his shoulder, but I'd like to see him return to a clean physical style in the playoffs, and for him to cut the antics.

 

[UnderratedBrooks44]

Except that Crosby has been called an excellent leader by every coach he's played for. Considering that they interact with the players at an intimate level every day, I think they know what they're talking about.

I have no doubt he's great at leading by example and there's nothing wrong with that. Oftentimes though that's not the kind of leadership that's needed. Plus all that being said do you really think any of those coaches would say what I just said, or just give everyone what they want to hear anyways?

 

[IcedCapp]

I'm glad this board finally got around to doing what it's best at: criticizing Crosby.

Please, all you leaders of men, list the "in-your-face" Captains in today's NHL?

Captains aren't what they were back then, and it's not Crosby's job to tell James Neal to stop being a child.

 

[Til the End of Time]

i dont really care that much about the nhl discipline system. maybe james neal is the poster child for its problems.

but what i do know, and what i think is a bigger issue for the penguins, is that james neal is the poster child for what's wrong with the pittsburgh penguins.

talented player that throws tempter tantrums when things dont go his way. accountability and discipline is lacking. refuses to learn from his mistakes. seems arrogant and a d-bag also.

basically the pittsburgh penguins in a nutshell.

 

[billybudd]

neal seems like a d-bag/punk. he is the sort of player that makes the penguins unlikable. but he scores a lot so i dont mind a certain degree of antics. he takes it too far though.

his cheapshots need to stop. they dont add to his game in the way that cooke's did. cooke was a consistent physical presence that did a great job of wearing down the opposition's blueline by forechecking hard or by targeting the opposition's stars.

neal just throws temper tantrums when things dont go his way and cheapshots people. i dont care what other teams get penalized for, neal is frequently an embarrassment.

the unfortunate thing is that he can be a consistent physical presence that plays a relatively clean brand of hockey if only he was motivated. when he's not being a baby, he can forecheck with the best of 'em (ie when he drives chara nuts).

but most of the time he is just a whiny petulant star.

Petulant.

There's truth in here. There are players who toe or cross the "dirty" line that are more effective for it, but Neal's not one of them. When Cooke came in on the forecheck, D would misplay the dump ins out of fear that he might hit them in an injurious way. Better to give up the puck and live to play tomorrow than risk getting killed. This lead to a lot of cycling the puck for 45 seconds in the offensive zone.

Neal just gets mad about something and does something illegal and dumb. There's no thought process or purpose behind it. Where Cooke could be a double-edged sword, the edge facing the other guy was the sharpest.

Neal's not a double-edged sword, he's more of an ouroboros.

 

[DegenX]

Clicked the link.

Saw the 'Hockey Buzz' logo.

Closed the tab.

 

[LaughAtMyPain]

I severely dislike the dirty hits that Neal has made over the last few season. With that said, I view these moments of frustration and lack of discipline from him, as well as the other star players, as a backlash of all the dirty crap that the Penguins constantly have to go through. If we are all being reasonable, then it is fairly obvious why there are instances where the stars behave this way.

How many games have the fans complained about the blatant, dangerous plays inflicted on these guys? How many times do we hear that our players are the dirty ones, when in reality it is other team instigating all of this with dirty plays of their own?

I am in no way condoning this embarassing behavior. However, I will say that Crosby, Malkin, Neal, etc. were not like this in the beginning of their careers. I think that this is just a result of the years of being berated and abused, and the refs not doing too much about. With our current roster, and the so-called "tough guys" not deterring the damn players from taking liberties, I can't find much of a problem with the stars defending themselves.

Hopefully, these guys realize that stooping to the level of the idiots isn't in team's best interest.

 

[Gurglesons]

I agree with the sentiment of this article, but when players like Thornton can KO a player like Orpik was, it is kind of an odd situation.

I liked the fact of having a Matt Cooke on the team. It helped our top two lines have leeway and the aggression wasn't being taken out on players like Malkin and Crosby.

Neal shouldn't be the player throwing knees into players like Marchand's head, but in my eyes we need someone to even out the dirty plays that are thrown at Crosby and Malkin all the time. We just saw Malkin and Crosby both get butt-ended.

 

[td_ice]

Clicked the link.

Saw the 'Hockey Buzz' logo.

Closed the tab.

Smart girl.

 

[Rico Fatastic]

Regarding the points about diving:

I absolutely despise diving in the NHL. Whether it's Brad Marchand or PK Subban or James Neal or Kris Letang. Doesn't matter; it pisses me off no matter who's doing it. But what I despise even more is that diving -- or "going down easy" if you prefer -- is the fact that it's damn near a requirement to getting a penalty called on honest-to-goodness real, legitimate penalties. If a player doesn't hit the ice on a hook or an interference, it's probably not going to get called. More often than not, when a player takes a dive in the NHL, it's to draw attention to an actual penalty; not to fabricate a penalty on a perfectly legal play (though the latter certainly does happen entirely too often as well).

Call me naive, but I honestly believe diving would be much less of a problem if the referees called every penalty every time, be it the first period of a preseason game in September or the third overtime of a game 7 in May. We'd spend a lot more time playing 3 on 3 hockey for a while, perhaps; but if the refs were consistent in calling everything, and didn't gradually relax their standards like they did the last time the league allegedly cracked down on obstruction, I've no doubt the players would get used to it after not too long.

 

[Cherpak]

Who gives a frogs fat ass if other people don't like our team?

Neal needs to get his bs together only because he is going to hurt the TEAM.

Malkin and Crosby get frustrated and retaliate because their team mates allow them to be harassed. No one comes to their aid unless its a major incident. The one thing Engelland was good for he no longer does since he signed his contract. I guess he figures that he is much too important to do the dirty work anymore.

 

[Cherpak]

Oh and Paul Stewart was a complete ****** when he was a referee. Mario couldn't stand the guy. Trust me, this little article was nothing more than a slam against not only Neal but the entire Pens organization.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

It's tough to watch when Geno & Neal are throwing their tantrums in a game, I mean when Sid does it, he usually has a few whacks with a stick to some guy's leg or he roughs someone up and takes a few bad penalties and that's the end of it, he has a bad game and he rebounds the next.

Geno is Dr Jekyll or Hyde with his, he'll either throw a tantrum and play like a beast or throw a tantrum and turn the puck over, get stupid penalties, and be a huge detriment to the team and that will go on for a few games.

Neal, he just ends up doing the most stupid thing possible in the game and make you shake your head.

The best part of all of this is that people love Lindros and Messier and others like that, for stuff Geno, Sid, and Neal do when they loose their cool, when those guys (#88 and #11) did it, they look back it as "Man they were awesome!" but when those 3 do it, it's "They are bad players!"...

AND the worst part is that...the team walks on egg shells with all 3. Mostly the first two. Why? Because they aren't just the franchise players, they're two of the best in the game, the fear of telling them off for being stupid might result in one of them wanting out or both. That's the ultimate fear for Shero et al. But it has to be done, sometimes I wish we had a coach that had the balls to snap at star players the way Torts does (no way in hell do I want Torts on the Pens though).

But this is our team, if people don't like it, they can go **** themselves.

 

[DanFailsma]

I have a hard time picturing Sid lecturing Neal and/or Malkin about their stupidity anyway.

 

[Lim Ran]

I was very surprised to see this article posted on the main forum by a Flyers fan.

 

[MtlPenFan]

The #AskNeal thing on twitter is hysterical:

http://thepensblog.com/2014-archive...s-twitter-askneal-campaign-is-a-disaster.html


I know it's one of our guys, but I'm sorry, funny is funny. There are about 7 or 8 of them that had me dying.

"If you dropped a baby on its head, would it already be unconscious from the elbow?"

 

[AjaxTelamon]

The #AskNeal thing on twitter is hysterical:

http://thepensblog.com/2014-archive...s-twitter-askneal-campaign-is-a-disaster.html


I know it's one of our guys, but I'm sorry, funny is funny. There are about 7 or 8 of them that had me dying.

"If you dropped a baby on its head, would it already be unconscious from the elbow?"

That's pretty entertaining. It's also highly entertaining that the two most highly represented fan-bases with the funny questions are Philly and Boston, who are really just unhappy someone is violating their respective copyrights on cross-checking and diving, with an injunction from Montreal for any future slew-footing Nealer may be considering.

 

[gordie]

A real NHL Head Coach would have his players current and past under control like Neal, Malkin, Cooke, Talbot, B Johnson etc.. so as to get the best performance out of them. This present joke of Bylsma & Granato don't want any of these players to hate them, so we get these type of distractions and problems.

 

[CrozJawz*]

And how would this be remedied???

By playing the way the Pens USE to up until that night on the Island...

THEY were the ones agitating the other team's stars and distracting their goons into chasing around the Pens' agitators all night instead of going after Crosby and Malkin all night.

Now, opposing teams have free reign to focus on the Pens' stars and get under their skin all night long, just trying to get one of them to have their patented meltdowns... The Blues started from the get go by giving Crosby and butt end into his back and then causing the entire Blues bench, including Hitchcock himself to laugh at what they had drawn out of the Pens.

 

[CrozJawz*]

I have a hard time picturing Sid lecturing Neal and/or Malkin about their stupidity anyway.

#CountryClub

 

[MtlPenFan]

I urge you guys to watch the Bruins/Habs game. Bruins are taking hissy fits after every Montreal hit as if they're saying "How dare you!" They've been taking cheap shots all game and it's only going to get worse.

The difference in the forum of public opinion between them and the Pens isn't magic: it's that they don't apologize for who and what they are. And what they are is dirty pigs, just like the rest of the city.

Pens on the other hand get grief because they ask for it by trying to lead the way - publicly at least - to a nicer cleaner league, trying to tell everyone how to behave and trying to legislate morality.

 

[Til the End of Time]

I urge you guys to watch the Bruins/Habs game. Bruins are taking hissy fits after every Montreal hit as if they're saying "How dare you!" They've been taking cheap shots all game and it's only going to get worse.

The difference in the forum of public opinion between them and the Pens isn't magic: it's that they don't apologize for who and what they are. And what they are is dirty pigs, just like the rest of the city.

Pens on the other hand get grief because they ask for it by trying to lead the way - publicly at least - to a nicer cleaner league, trying to tell everyone how to behave and trying to legislate morality.

and what would that make pittsburgh?

 

[STLPensFan]

The #AskNeal thing on twitter is hysterical:

I know it's one of our guys, but I'm sorry, funny is funny.

Simon Despres @Despres747
@jneal_18 are you shy in the showers? #AskNeal

I'm kinda sad that it was Despres that tweeted that rather than Sutter.